Malaysia has ten species of hornbill – ten in Peninsular Malaysia, eight in East Malaysia. The future survival of these hornbills depends greatly on how we govern our forests, including the protected areas within them. At Malaysian Nature Society (MNS), we believe it is key to empower civil society – from local communities and indigenous peoples to the grassroots NGOs – to play a role in monitoring their forests. This community-based approach is integral to our involvement in the European Union-funded Asia-Pacific forest governance project*, led by BirdLife International.
But empowering such a broad spectrum of civil society can be a daunting and laborious task, and stakeholder involvement will always be influenced by levels of awareness, interests, commitment and capacity. In addition, the disparity between forest policies and processes in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak complicates the matter, because there can be no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution. Yet, citizen science is becomingly increasingly important in biodiversity and natural resource use. Some of Malaysia’s newer national policies and programmes now actively encourage Malaysians to engage in citizen science. If by monitoring biodiversity and forests we can influence how our forests are treated, it is surely worth the effort.
Broadly, we use two approaches at MNS to monitor forests. One uses GIS tools (digital mapping of forest data), whilst the other uses a particular species as a surrogate, whereby conservation efforts of a representative species benefit the wider ecosystem. Birds have proven to be effective indicators of wider environmental health in many parts of the world. The Belum-Temengor Forest Complex (BTFC) in northern Peninsular Malaysia holds a special place in the history of MNS, and since our work began there in the 1990s, its conservation is one of our utmost priorities. Not only is it an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area and a Forest of Hope, it also holds the distinction of being one of only two sites in Malaysia to support all ten of the country’s hornbill species. This lends us an ideal opportunity to employ hornbills as surrogates to protect this precious site, since healthy hornbills depend upon healthy forests.
